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Hamas, PFLP, ISIS Buck over Claiming Recent Jerusalem Attack

In 2016, a truck ramming attack that killed four soldiers at a Jerusalem tourist site could have had links to the group, Israeli authorities said, but Islamic State did not claim responsibility. In an online statement, the group said three IS fighters had targeted “a gathering of Jews” in an operation yesterday during which the three attackers were killed by Israeli police. “You mean after they stabbed a female Israeli police officer to death… right?”However, the Hamas and People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant groups quickly retorted that the three attackers who were killed were their members and accused the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, of trying to undermine their efforts.Friday’s attack was carried out by three Palestinian men – Asama Ahmed Mustafa Atta, Adel Hassan Ahmad Ankush and Bra’a Ibrahim Muhammad Salah – from the West Bank village of Deir Abu-Mashal, near Ramallah.Police said two of the perpetrators opened fire and tried to stab a group of officers, while the 23-year-old policewoman was attacked nearby and died of her injuries.A spokesman for Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said it was “impossible to corroborate (the IS claim) at this point”.In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, an Israeli settler was injured in a stabbing attack, the Israeli army said in a statement.Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.”The idea that this was some kind of a coordinated event, potentially, with multiple attackers is less frequent”, Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said.”I call on the countries of the world to condemn both the murder and those who praise it”, Netanyahu said after the latest terror attack in Jerusalem, saying Palestinian “mendacity and brazen gall know no bounds”.According to Rosenfeld, hundreds of extra officers have been deployed in and around the Old City to locate potential suspects and ensure the last week of Ramadan concludes without incident.Israel said it saw no evidence of such a decision and the Palestinians would not confirm.Israel blames the Palestinian leadership for inciting the violence.Unrest that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 272 Palestinians, 42 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP tally.Netanyahu was also considering sealing off the Damascus Gate area to the public.Furthermore, the soldiers condiscated 40 Palestinian cars, some of them without valid licence plates, and distributed leaflets warning that the military will conduct repeated invasions and searches of homes, and will keep the siege imposed on tghe village.